


Kindergarten Firsts

by happyaspie



Series: Spider-man Stories: Not Otherwise Specified [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Pepper Potts, Back to School, Cute Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, I can not make it clear enough how okay everything is in the AU, Kindergarten, Life Lessons, Morgan & Tony Centric, Morgan Stark is precious, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, One Big Happy Family, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Pepper Gives Tony a Hard Time, Pepper is a good mom, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark are Siblings, Peter Parker Lives, Peter Parker is a good big brother, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark loves his kids, all is well, school days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-10 01:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyaspie/pseuds/happyaspie
Summary: Morgan isn't ready to go to kindergarten all on her own so Tony accompanies her on the first day.It goes about as well as you would expect.OrTony Stark fails at kindergarten.





	Kindergarten Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> So basically my **whole family** participated in this story.
> 
> Like, my nearly fifteen-year-old son came up with the whole idea and wanted me to write it, _which was cool because it was an awesome idea. _
> 
> Then myself, my eleven-year-old daughter and even my husband all put ideas into it.
> 
> It turned out _way better_ than I imagined and was extremely fun to write.

Tony sighed at the dinner table. They had already been around and around this for the last few days. "Morgan, Bug, I know you don't want to go to school but you have to. It's important. Mommy says so.", he told his daughter for what had to have been the hundredth time since breakfast. "Besides, Kindergarten is fun. You're going to have a great time."

He and Pepper had decided to send her to public kindergarten after keeping her home for the first five years of her life. They'd wanted to keep her close, to allow her to learn through play and explorations and now they were starting to regret not at least putting her in some sort of a playgroup. At first, she'd been really excited about the idea of going to school and making friends her age. It wasn't until she realized that it was all day every day and without her mom or dad that things started to go sour.

At one point, Tony had enlisted her most favorite person in the world to and convince her that school was going to great but even Peter couldn't get her to budge. She was stubborn and both Peter and Pepper had blamed that on him and his 'Stark genes'. He didn't even bother to try to deny it. 

"You know, Pete's going to be going to school on Monday too,", Tony tried when telling her once again, that it would be fun still didn't work. "He's going back to his big kid classes and he's_ really_ excited about it."

"He can be excited about his school. I'm _not_ going to be excited about my school.", Morgan rigidly stated as he dropped her fork and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't want to go to kindergarten. I want to play in the garage."

"I know you like playing in the garage with Daddy but you have school tomorrow. Daddy will drive you there and pick you up. You'll be fine.", Pepper asserted from her place at the head of the table. 

Tony glared at his wife for daring to call what he did in the garage _playing_ but he didn't say anything. Mostly because Morgan was already retaliating. "Why can't Daddy stay with me.?", she asked as if that were the most reasonable suggestion in the world. "Then he wouldn't have to come back to get me. He would already be there. _It makes sense."_

Pepper smiled and stifled a laugh at the reasoning. "Maybe he will. He'd have to ask your teacher.", she finally said, much to Tony's horror. "He doesn't have anything better to do anyway."

"I resent that.", Tony grumbled towards his gleeful wife before once again addressing his daughter who was now happily back to eating her dinner. "You know none of the other daddies will be staying, right?" 

"I know.", she chirped between bites. "...but you're not like other daddies. You're Ironman. Petey says that means you can do anything."

Making a mental note to smack his pseudo son in the back of the head next time he saw him, Tony sighed once again. "Fine, but I get half of your cookies at snack time."

Morgan looked up from her plate and held out her hand as if she negotiated things of such high caliber on a regular basis. "Deal."

~o~o~o~o~o~

Pulling into the small public school at entirely too early in the morning was an experience. Parents were everywhere, some kissing their kids good-bye at the door while others walked their littlest ones inside. It was a lot of hustle and bustle for one small parking lot. Once he'd finally found an available place to park, Tony rushed Morgan out of the car and into the building, her oversized backpack hanging so low on her back, that it bounced off of the backs of her knees. Smiling at the comical proportions, Tony grabbed ahold of the small loop at the top of the bag and headed down the crowded hall.

After easily getting the all-clear to spend the day in the classroom, Tony settled down in the corner of the room. He'd started in one of the tiny plastic chairs but soon enough it became evident that he would really be better off on the floor. He just hoped he could get back up. 

Soon enough, Morgan was pulling on his hand as she insisted that he follow her to circle time on the rug. At her begging pleas, he reluctantly pulled himself up, all cracking knees and grunts of effort, only to drop back down onto the carpet. 'Red' had been his assigned color while Morgan had been sent to sit on the 'blue' spot beside him. He rolled his eyes at the emphasis on colors. He was sure Morgan had known those kinds of basics for at least three years now.

The teacher went around the rug and asked everyone to introduce themselves. He'd expected her to skip him but, of course, she didn't. "Your turn.", she said in the same tone she'd used with the children making him want to scream but looking at Morgan he didn't. 

"I'm Tony Stark. I'm just here to visit.", he said as Morgan pipped up that he was her dad. Sighing, he waited for the hundreds of questions that would arise _from that _but none came. Probably because the teacher had already moved on to the next_ actual_ child in the circle. Once they had been around the rug he was hoping for a reprieve from the floor but no, she started talking about letters.

"Who can name a word that starts with one of the 'A' sounds we talked about?", the teacher asked and without missing a beat Tony answered.

"Avionics.", he said with a smirk but the woman just shook her head. "What?", he asked defensively. All he'd done was answer her question. No one else was going to do it... Even Morgan had stayed quiet and she knew how to read. "It's the study of the electronic controls in flight."

"I know what it is, _Tony_... but in our class, we raise our hands.", she kindly reminded, though she looked as though she was actively trying to hold back a smile.

Looking around the carpet he could see that there were a few hands up, including his daughter's. '_Whatever_', he thought to himself. He was an adult for crying out loud, he could speak when he wanted to speak. 

Next on the agenda was a morning snack. Pepper had packed Morgan a small lunchbox containing a juice box and six Oreo's. Tony squatted down beside his daughter at the table and watched as she carefully laid out each cookie onto the napkin she'd been given. "You remember our deal. right, Bug?" I get three of those.", he said with a smile but as he was reaching for his allotted number of cookies, the teacher came up behind him.

"_Tony,_ we don't take other people's food. If you don't have a snack you get some fruit from the basket."

Clenching his jaw and resisting the urge to make a scene Tony rolled his eyes. "They're literally _my_ cookies... _I bought them_.", he insisted as he looked up at the young woman who was still hovering over him. That alone was irksome. Not many people could say that they had legitimately talked _down_ to Tony Stark.

"Yeah, but Mommy Packed them for me.",Morgan quickly stated before licking the cream out of the first cookie.

"Traitor", Tony grumble before taking a bite out of the banana the teacher had handed him, leaving Morgan to have all six cookies to herself.

Free play was easy and he enjoyed watching as the kids were allowed to go around the and experiment with different materials. While some of them, chose to work with legos, color on construction paper or look at books, Morgan sat at a table with a lump of clay. Tired of sitting on the floor he pulled himself up and sat down on top of the desk beside where Morgan was molding causing her to look up from her project. "You're not supposed to sit on the tables at school, Daddy.", she informed while squishing the soft clay between her fingers.

"Oh, hush you. You're five.", Tony returned, huffing a laugh in amusement because since when does his daughter get to remind him of the rules. _He's the adult_. However, it didn't take much longer for him to hear the sound of the teacher clearing her throat behind him. Grimacing and sliding off of the desk, he ignored his child's '_I told you so'_ and directed his attention to the woman who now had her arms crossed over her chest. "Yeah, yeah. Don't sit on the desk. I got it.", he groused, choosing to stand behind Morgan's small chair instead.

After clean up and a brief break, the children were all called back to the rug for a lesson in numbers and then it was time for lunch. Filing into the lunchroom he wrinkled his nose at the smell. It wasn't_ bad_ so much as it was...not _amazing_. Then, as he looked over all of the small heads bouncing around in front of him, he got a good look at the buffet-style lunch that screamed _Kid food. _So, rather than picking up Tray of his own, he followed behind Morgan and watched as she took a small cardboard container filled with four luke-warm chicken nuggets and a handful of soggy fries before adding what looked like over-cooked and under-seasoned green beans to the plate, finishing it off with some apple sauce. 

As all of the small children fixed their plates, an older teacher that was in charge of monitoring the lunchroom, at the time, mingled among them, making suggestions and rebalancing trays being held by small unsteady hands. At one point she came by to praise Morgan for her good choices while at the same time looking Tony over as if he's done something wrong when all he'd done was walk his daughter through the lunch line. _He had permission to be there.._.

"...and where's your tray, Tony?", the older woman asked, amusement clearly lacing her tone.

Giving her as much of a blank look as he could he quickly replied, "I'm not eating that."

"Tony, it's lunchtime. Everyone has to make a plate.", she said with a smile. "That's the rules."

Standing up a bit taller and putting his hands in his pockets, Tony gave her a look, daring her to go any further. "I'm seriously not eating any of that. I'm pretty sure those fries were microwaved. I'll pick up some real ones on the way home."

No longer able to hold back her utter amusement at the man's indignant stance on school cafeteria food, the teacher had to bite back a laugh. "You don't have to like everything on your plate but you have to try it. You need one entree and two sides.", she patronizingly ordered making Tony want to snap. He didn't though. Not with so many little eyes on him. Instead, he grabbed a styrofoam tray all the while making a mental note to fund something a little more_ environmentally friendly_ and loaded it up with the sub-par juvenal fair. 

He sat down beside Morgan at the much too small table and pushed the tray back in favor of opening the little carton of milk. Morgan watched him for a moment as she took several bites of the mushy beans using her fingers. "Mommy says you have to take a 'no thank you bite.'", she said matter-of-factly before moving on to the chicken nuggets. 

"Mommy says _you have to take a 'no thank you bite.'_. You're still five.", Tony retorted with a scoff, ready for this day to be over.

After lunch, they were all led outside where the first half of the play would be instructed while the second half would be free-choice. Tony watched as the young man who seemed to be in charge of setting up cooperative games explained the rules of Follow the Leader. When he was asked to be the first to act as the leader he sighed as if it were the hardest thing he would have to do all day but he headed up the line all the same. Weaving in and out of the equipment, jumping when appropriate and even going so far as to hold out his arms as if he were flying, he glanced occasionally behind him and smiled. It ended up being kind of fun but he would never admit that to anyone. Not even Morgan who had been giggling behind him. 

After several minutes of guiding the class around the play area, the teacher stopped him in order to assign a new leader. He easily stepped aside and casually leaned up against the metal monkey bars to observe the rest of the game. ...Or he thought that's what the was going to do until the young man approached him with a smile.

"It's your turn to follow now. You should get back in line.", the teacher suggested with the same sickeningly, overly-friendly smile that all of the other teachers had been using all day. 

"Yeah...", Tony started before smirking and shrugging his shoulders. "Following isn't really my style."

Never letting up the '_I'm super happy all the time because I work with kids_' look, the man raised his eyebrows. "At school, we follow directions. Please join the class so that we can keep playing our game."

Tony rolled his eyes and got in the back of the line but only because he didn't want to look entirely contrary in front of his daughter's twenty or so classmates. Though he drew the line at crawling under the raised playhouse structure. Thankfully the teacher didn't say anything about that and when the game ended he was elated. Once free-choice time had taken over he was left alone to watch his daughter initiate games with the other children. Like her mother, she seemed to enjoy being the one in charge. 

As they meandered their way through the halls to the water fountains and back to the classroom, Tony looked at his watch. The school day was nearly over and part of him wondered if he could take Morgan and sneak out early but he didn't even try. She seemed to be having fun and he was actually enjoying listening to her talk to the other kids. He was so used to seeing her interact with adults that it was entertaining. 

Back in the classroom, the teacher started handing out small colorfully patterned bed-sheets and showing the small class how to tuck the corners around the edges of the mat. He reluctantly took the one he was handed and effortlessly dressed the crib-sized blue mat. Once all of the sleeping spots had been assigned and mats had been laid out each child was called to go retrieve the blanket they'd brought from home. 

He laughed when he saw that Pepper had packed a small plush blanket with a cartoon image of Spiderman on it that made Morgan squeal in delight. She wadded it up and hurried back over to the mat that was laying beside his and pulled him in so that she could giddily whisper in his ear.

"It's Petey!", she said quietly as her whole body seemed to vibrate with excitement. Pepper must have bought that blanket specifically for school and placed it in the bag as a surprise.

"Yes. Shhh. It's a secret, remember?", Tony strained under his breath at his delighted child's enthusiasm. 

"I know, Daddy. I won't tell.", she promised with a finger over her still widely smiling lips. 

Satisfied that his other child's secret identity wasn't about to be blown to pieces right there in an elementary school classroom, he covered Morgan in her blanket and told her to sleep. As she drifted off with surprising ease considering she usually spent half the evening coming up with a compilation of excuses to get out of bed, he leaned against the wall. 

The assigned nap time wasn't long, only about forty minutes but he was already bored. He's just laid his head back against the wall in frustration at the lack of _work_ he was getting done in the garage when he heard the teachers soft footsteps approaching him. Groaning quietly under his breath he looked in her directions. "What now?"

"It's nap time, everyone else is laying on their mats, Tony.", she whispered as she leaned over and checked on one of the other students in the vicinity.

Rolling his eyes for what had to have been the fiftieth time that day Tony replied, "Hmm. Well, I'm sitting on mine."

"You can't do that.", she laughed before schooling her featured back to the same nurturing look she'd had since they'd met that morning. "At school, we lay downon our mats at nap-time."

Thinking of the words that Peter had so generously given to Morgan Tony scoffed. "I'm Iron man I can do anything.", he said without budging.

"Not in my classroom.", the young woman sing-songed as she adjusted the blanket over Morgan's shoulders. 

"Fine.", Tony grumbled as he tried to adjust himself to fit on the small mat. At least, it wasn't sitting on the floor.

Thirty long minutes later the lights were flipped on and the room was filled with yawns and sleepy chatter. The cleanup process seemed chaotic but it got the job done and soon they were all sitting once again on the rug in the middle of the room. Tony sat in his spot as he waited for his still tired daughter to wander over to where the teacher was waiting, book in hand.

As she held up the book to show the vibrant pictures while she read, Tony felt a small weight fall into his side. He wrapped his arm around her for only a moment before urging her to sit up. After all, he wouldn't be staying after today. Tomorrow she would have to be independent. It wasn't much longer until the teacher was recapping the day and all of the kids were hustling about gathering their things and returning to the rug just as the afternoon announcements began. Then as soon as they were given the okay Tony was holding Morgans hand as they walked out of the building. 

When they arrived home to an empty house, he and Morgan made their way into the garage until Pepper stuck her head in to announce that she was home and that dinner was on the table. So, with Morgan on his hip, he entered the kitchen and froze as his daughter wriggled to get out of his hold. "Kid? What are you doing here?", he asked in confusion because he was meant to be in Massachusetts. Classes had already started and he was sure Peter had at least one on Monday mornings. "Don't you have classes?"

"I went to my class.", Peter spoke defensively as he leaned down to pick up the small child who was demanding his attention. "Then I got a message from Pepper saying that I should come to dinner tonight... so I did."

Glaring at his wife who was biting back a smile, Tony sighed. "You drove two hours just to come to dinner?"

"Mm-hmm.", Peter nodded as he looked back and forth between Pepper and Tony while Morgan patted at his face in an attempt to get all of his attention on her. "I couldn't _not_ come. It was Morgan's first-ever day of school and... well, I heard _you got sent back to kindergarten_ so I needed to find out how that went."

Before Tony could get any kind of a good response out of his mouth, Pepper was calling for everyone to sit down. Morgan was reluctant to leave Peter's grasp but eventually settled for sitting beside him, already talking a mile a minute. 

Smiling and nodding at her every word, Peter took the first opportunity that came about to look up at Tony. "..._and how was your day_, Tony?", he asked with unwavering mirth.

"He got in trouble.", Morgan supplied before Tony could get a singular word out of his mouth. 

"I did not!", he half-shouted in defense. _Of course, that's what she would want to tell everyone_. "I'm an adult. I don't _get in trouble_."

Smiling at each other knowingly, both Pepper and Peter pressed the smallest person at the table for more information. She readily and happily complied, retelling each and every time the teacher had said anything to him. She had an excellent memory and didn't hold back. Soon all three of them were giggling as he sat back and watched, happily eating his hot, seasoned, non-mushy dinner.

"I'm not surprised in the least.", Peter said to Pepper from across the table. "I can't even imagine what it would look like to see Tony raising his hand before speaking. I bet he was the same way when he was _actually_ in kindergarten.--"

"--I didn't even go to kindergarten, I went straight to first grade so there goes that theory.--", Tony smirked before frowning at the kid's quick reply.

"--_Actually_... that makes perfect sense. You missed out on all the _friendship and social skills lessons_.", Peter bit back with a smile.

Pepper agreed with a laugh. "...I can't get over you thinking it was okay to sit on the desk. It's bad enough you _stand_ on counters.", she said as she raised her eyebrows in Tony's direction. She'd pushed him off of counters and desk more times than anyone could count over the years. 

Sighing in defeat more so that annoyance, Tony dropped his fork and wiped his hands on a napkin. "Are you all done yet?"

"Possibly. ...but we could probably go on about this _for months_ and just think about if the media were to find out...", Peter eagerly replied before laughing and holding up a hand, waving it vaguely in the air. "I can see it now... Tony Stark returns to kindergarten: Doesn't play well with others."

"Watch it, kid.", Tony chastized before going back to his plate and ignoring the fact that all of the laughter surrounding him was currently at his expense.

"You know, it actually went better than I thought it would when I first arranged it.", Pepper mused causing Tony's head to jerk to the side in to look at her. 

Half glaring, Tony held up an accusatory finger. "This was your plan all along wasn't it! You told them to treat me like a five-year-old didn't you!", he nearly shouted. He sounded irritated but the smile on his face said otherwise. He wasn't really surprised now that she'd said it. He should have seen that coming. Then looking over at Morgan who was looking between them he smiled. "Well, jokes on you because _I had fun._"

"Does that mean you'll stay tomorrow too?", she asked with excitement while Peter and Pepper watched him with anticipation.

"_Not a chance_."

~o~o~o~o~o~

Later that night, after Morgan was finally asleep in her bed, Tony came down to the kitchen and began to rummage through the pantry. After several minutes of moving things around, he called out over his shoulder, "Pepper? Where are the rest of the Oreo's I bought?"

"Oh! Peter took those with him.", Pepper replied, never looking up from the book she was reading.

Tony sighed and shut the pantry door before dropping into the chair beside his wife. "_Of course he did_.", he grumbling because clearly, wife _and his kids_ were _all_ plotting against him. Only a few seconds passed before he was abruptly standing up and sulking towards the garage, still muttering to himself. "Whatever, I didn't really want any anyway."


End file.
